Erotic…devoted to or tending to arouse sexual love or desire…according the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Sexual desire, sensuality, romantic arousal.
That which turns us on; makes us horny?
Or, that which heightens our instincts, it still indicates sex. Arousal. Turned on. A feel good release.
And that kind of written word describes the build-up and release we’re not supposed to talk about. It’s for the dark; behind closed doors; hidden behind…really, we still believe this?
It’s one of the biggest markets out in the publishing world. The movie industry…adult films, pornography…has been ranked as the leaders of the internet age. Apparently, they were the first to cash-in on video sales; live streaming; website; you name it. One of the first reasons I read about why some people liked eReaders was because no one knew what they were reading. You can hide the steam.
I think the phrase is…sex sells and it sells big time.
And it’s out there in multiple ways and levels. The simplest is still the romance genre. Simple love stories that sometimes now get a bit steamy. Some even go so far as have sex right on the page instead of off-page. The difference is in language and just how graphic the detail gets.
What my mom considered “raw” forty years ago is nothing today. It might qualify as plain romance. The original H-romance books, well, were tamer than a few YA books nowadays. Some H-romance books now….whoa, shocked me.
These are all erotic to someone. Someone finds these examples stimulating, in the sense that they connect on a base level. Their feel-good chemicals are released.
I experience a thunderstorm and I freak out. Someone I worked with, years ago, got turned on. Someone else likes oysters…me? ICK.
Yet, society still snickers at the word erotic, eroticism, and tee-hees it as a dirty word. That only…those people…do whatever with it.
Why bring up this topic, again? I’m editing through Connie and Boris’ collection and realize, I prefer writing the erotic rather than the wham-bamming aspects of this genre. This made me question whether I was falling into the trap of thinking my chosen genre wasn’t worth anything.
Sure, there’s plenty of stories that are nothing but sex romps. Books filled with weak writing of bad sex, heck, anyone could think the same of my writings.
Erotic writing is like a good mystery story is like a suspense-filled science fiction is like a magical fantasy…they all capture us and hold us hostage till the end. And that’s what writing is all about. That’s why we are drawn to reading fiction. Dirty word…depends on how you give a F… 😉